Seeing and Hearing the Thinking Voice

Given that my own work is focused on questions of diaspora, visuality, and queerness, I am very grateful for the fact that Fiol-Matta models for us a mode of both listening and looking with deep care. This critical listening and critical looking make apparent an entirely different understanding of Puerto Rican music culture, through an examination of how women singers have negotiated the impossible demands placed on their star bodies. Fiol-Matta theorizes for us the intimate relation between the visual and the aural. As such, her work in fact powerfully resonates with that of visual studies scholars such as Tina Campt, Christopher Pinney, and Krista Thompson